Spotify launches Play Button in bid to become the web's default music player

The music streaming wars have been heating up a good deal, as of late, thanks in no small part Spotify's long-awaited US launch. Since then, Rhapsody bought its one-time chief competitor Napster, both Pandora and Rdio underwent major redesigns and Mog finally launched a Windows client. Naturally, all of this has proven good news for the consumer, as services have a features arms race of sorts, gunning for the top spot. None of the contenders are quite perfect, of course -- when Spotify launched, for example, we couldn't help but note the absence of a browser-based option of the sort employed by Rdio and Pandora. Today's announcement still leaves open that possibility, but it does mark a new web-focused strategy for the company -- on that could arguably have a much larger impact on Spotify's fortunes than a simple browser-based UI.

Today marks the launch of the Spotify Play Button -- a name we assume the Swedish company settled on before Google announced the whole Android Market rebranding thing. The button is, essentially, a widget that allows site owners to embed songs and playlists directly from Spotify's massive catalog of songs. It's a simple idea, sure, but well executed, it could prove a major win in the service's attempt to stand out in the ever-more competitive world of music streaming. After all, embedding music on sites has long been a fairly haphazard deal -- unless you happen to have a deal with a proprietary player, it means snapping up something like a YouTube video, which often live in, at best, a legal gray area.

Of course, the company wouldn't launch a new feature like this without announcing some high profile partners, and Spotify's got a pretty solid lineup here, including Tumblr, The Huffington Post, Time Out Group , The Guardian, NME, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, People and Spin, among others. Spotify is really playing up the Tumblr integration in particular, which lets users create embeds that match their blog theme with a few clicks.

The real news here, though, is just how easy the feature is for all of the amateurs out there. Spotify gave us early access to an early build of the Widget Creator tool, and really, the whole thing was accomplished with a few clicks. You grab the link of a song, album or playlist from the Spotify app with a right click, paste it in the field and click Generate. The app offers up two options -- a small embed, as seen above the break, and the larger one seen below. We opted for a single track for the small embed and a playlist for the larger, though you don't have to adhere to that. You can grab the embed code from a field or the widget itself once created -- click on the upper right corner on either one right now, and you'll see fields for an embed and URL.

The player's default design is straightforward and should fit into most blog settings fairly well -- the small version is a quarter devoted to the cover art, with the artist and track name above the status bar. You can also adjust the dimensions and make a few tweaks to the color scheme. Clicking the art will play the track. If it's a playlist, you'll get options for advancing the track next to the status bar. The only aesthetically jarring bit (assuming, of course, that this isn't Cannibal Corpse artwork that we're dealing with here) is the bright green Spotify logo in the bottom right hand corner -- but, hey, it's gotta remind us all who's running the show, right? The larger player, meanwhile, devotes the bottom portion to the artwork of the current track. If you're dealing with a playlist here, you can toggle this to view a listing of all the included tracks.

As promised, there are no pop up or banner ads here. Also cool is the fact that, should you happen to be signed into Spotify at the time, the song will also register is playing on the app, which means, for example, that if you're listening to a tune on Spotify and click another via the play button on a blog, the two won't play over one another, sound collage-style. Non-paying users, however, will still be served up with the normal barrage of ads -- Spotify does have to turn a buck, after all.

So, why doesn't this exact product already exist in the world? We suspect that the problem lies -- as it often does -- with the record labels. How did Spotify circumvent the thorny maze of negotiation on this? Well, the company already struck deals with the labels. We spoke to a Spotify employee who assured us that the company didn't actually strike any new deals here -- meaning, apparently, that the site believes the new method of distribution to be covered by its existing deals. It remains to be seen whether labels are ultimately as pleased by this as Spotify seems to think they'll be.

From a consumer perspective, however, if you weren't a Spotify user before, you likely will be one soon -- whether or not you actually go so far as signing up with the service. If you regularly visit one of the aforementioned partners or even personal music blogs, odds are good that Spotify will be playing your jam soon.

Show full PR text